In the upper minors, there is no half system, which makes the 2010 Harrisburg Senators playoff run even more impressive. At the halfway mark, their record stood at 34-37, more than a dozen games back and in fourth place. Down the stretch, they would go 43-28 and shave that lead to five games to earn the Eastern League’s Western Division wild card, beating out Bowie and Akron by a game and two games respectively.

The Senators would lose to the eventual Eastern League champions, the Altoona Curve — a team that featured several players with playoff experience in winning the 2009 Carolina League championship with the Lynchburg Hillcats. Like Potomac, this team gelled at just the right time, and got some significant help with the addition of two starters — Ryan Tatusko and Tanner — that would become known as “The Guz Two” because they were acquired from Texas in the Christian Guzman trade.

You know the drill: Let’s look at how the Senators compared to the Eastern League…

HITTING

TEAM

AB

R

H

HR

BB

SO

AVG

OBP

SLG

GPA

SB

Harrisburg

4726

598

1188

121

398

948

.251

.314

.390

.239

86

Lg. Avg.

4755

656

1232

113

470

1008

.259

.332

.397

.249

97

Italics = League Trailer

PITCHING

TEAM

IP

ERA

R/G

WHIP

HR

BB

SO

H/9IP

BB/9IP

K/9IP

K/BB

Harrisburg

1252.0

3.51

3.94

1.255

102

400

1108

8.4

2.9

8.0

2.77

Lg. Avg.

1244.0

4.21

4.63

1.370

113

470

1008

8.9

3.4

7.3

2.14

Bold = League Leader

As we just saw from our most recent World Champions, great pitching can carry mediocre-to-poor hitting and the Senators were no different. Offensively, the Sens were in the bottom third of the league for runs scored, hits, doubles, RBI, SBs, walks, OBP, and SLG percentage. They were middle of the pack for HRs and triples, and surprisingly for a team that was dead-last in BBs, they stuck out the third-fewest.

What this team could do well, however, was pitch. They managed to lead the league in ERA despite their #2 pitcher (in terms of IP, of course) sporting a 5.80 ERA. Seven of the Top 16 pitchers had ERAs below 3.00. As you can see from the bolded categories, they led the league in some of the most important ones: runs allowed, earned runs allowed, and ratio, and were second in baserunners allowed (WHIP) and walks, and third in strikeouts. In fact, we almost had a microcosm of Harrisburg vs. the Eastern League on the same staff, with Jeff Mandel as the former and Jason Jones as the latter.

In terms of batters, the stalwarts of the 2009 Potomac Nationals — Chris Marrero, Danny Espinosa and Jesus Valdez — were the top three batters in terms of plate appearances, runs, and RBIs. But beyond that it was the usual mix of formers, might-haves, were-it-nots (whatever euphemism you’d prefer for the “other guys” on the team) that were complementary parts, of which the best can be said is that they played league-average defense, with the exception of the catchers, who led the league in baserunners caught and worked with the pitchers to tie for the fewest stolen bases allowed.

As in previous season reviews, let’s look at the Top 16 (in terms of Plate Appearances or Innings Pitched) which puts the cutoff at 100PA and 32⅓ IP. The full team statistics can be found here.

Name

Age

Position(s)

G @ Pos

Fld%

Err

PA

GPA

Chris Marrero

21

1B

129

.984

18

577

.270

Jesus Valdez

25

RF/LF

67/58

.990

2

569

.242

Danny Espinosa

23

SS

98

.964

15

434

.266

Brad Coon

27

CF

107

.996

1

413

.232

Michael Martinez

27

2B/OF/SS

83/17/3

.969

14

387

.234

Marvin Lowrance

25

LF

61

.978

2

357

.283

Jhontan Solano

24

C

89

.993

5

345

.225

Tim Pahuta

27

3B/1B

50/12

.956

9

303

.208

Edgardo Baez

24

RF/CF/LF

52/22/7

.983

3

300

.235

Josh Johnson

24

SS/2B/3B

35/19/17

.977

6

258

.280

Ofilio Castro

26

3B/2B

57/10

.981

3

225

.197

Adam Fox

28

3B/2B/LF

36/5/1

.875

13

171

.175

Leonard Davis

26

OF/IF

27/8

.952

4

123

.243

Steve Lombardozzi

21

2B

27

.971

3

118

.299

Sean Rooney

24

C

30

.982

14

109

.165

Devin Ivany

27

C/1B

24/1

.988

3

100

.297

Believe it or not, the average age of the batters (24.7) wasn’t that far off from the league average (24.3) nor were they the oldest in the league. With three 22-year-olds (Norris, Lombardozzi, and Burgess) expected to begin the season in 2011, that number may trend downward unless more than one of them gets the bump to Syracuse. Just six of these sixteen were above the league-average for GPA, as you’d expect for team as a whole being in the bottom third of the league. But the good news was the pitching…

PLAYER

AGE

G/GS

W-L, SV

ERA

IP

H

BB

SO

WHIP

HBP

WP

Tom Milone

23

27/27

12-5

2.85

158

161

23

155

1.165

4

7

Aaron Thompson

23

26/26

4-13, 0

5.80

136⅔

164

53

95

1.588

5

5

Andrew Kown

27

15/15

6-4, 0

3.83

84⅔

83

19

47

1.205

3

1

Hassan Pena

25

48/0

2-2, 1

4.29

71⅓

73

30

64

1.444

6

8

Rafael Martin

26

21/14

5-4, 0

3.61

67⅓

55

26

58

1.203

1

6

Cole Kimball

24

38/10

5-1, 12

2.33

54

33

31

75

1.185

5

13

Jack Spradlin

25

39/1

1-1, 1

4.09

50⅔

51

18

49

1.362

4

2

Adam Carr

26

36/0

6-1, 5

3.04

50⅓

43

14

48

1.132

1

3

Chuck James

28

21/2

8-0, 2

1.59

45⅓

28

7

50

0.772

6

3

Erik Arnesen

26

13/5

2-2, 2

2.81

41⅔

36

7

35

1.032

1

1

John Lannan

25

7/7

1-4, 0

4.20

40⅔

49

10

28

1.451

4

0

Jeff Mandel

25

7/7

1-4, 0

3.82

40

37

13

27

1.250

2

1

Brad Peacock

22

7/7

2-2, 0

4.66

38⅔

33

22

30

1.422

0

0

Ryan Tatusko

25

6/6

3-1, 0

1.72

36⅔

30

13

36

1.173

1

1

Tanner Roark

23

6/6

1-1, 0

2.50

36

35

9

33

1.222

0

0

Ross Detwiler

24

7/7

2-2, 0

2.48

32⅔

38

7

31

1.378

2

1

There’s not much that I haven’t said already about the top dog on the pitching staff, Tom Milone. I’ll be looking forward to seeing how Sickels, BA, and the scouts at MLBA rate him this time around, now that he’s put up the numbers at the level that commands attention outside the prospect universe. Aaron Thompson was his counterweight in terms of affecting the team’s numbers as a group, and is likely to repeat this level in ’11, along with Brad Peacock and Tanner Roark.

Ryan Tatusko is the best candidate to join Milone at Syracuse next season, but beyond that is guessing game. Given the modern usage of AAA as a taxi squad, much will depend on the FAs that get signed between now and this spring. As mentioned in the comments, we’re still not at the point where the AA team has more prospects than organizational guys. While that will improve next year with the influx from Potomac, I expect to look over the ’11 Opening Day Roster and see a fair number of ’84s and ’85s in the DOB column.

Obviously, there’s some overlap with Potomac and some AFL bias in these lists. And like last week, naming a fifth bat is perfunctory. Johnson gets the nod because he’s versatile and handles the bat well. It’s no secret that next week will be even more of a, um, crapshoot when it comes to this part of the review.

A four-run 3rd by the Altoona Curve broke open a 3-2 lead and sent the Senators to a 10-5 loss to end their 2010 season. But the beat goes on in Potomac with a 10-3 win over the Frederick Keys, as the P-Nats advance to the Mills Cup finals for the second time in three seasons.

Tanner Roark was taken deep three times in less than three innings, accounting for all seven runs he surrendered, as the 23-year-old also struggled with his command in walking three over 2⅓ innings. Five relievers followed but only Rafael Martin and Cole Kimball would go scoreless as the Curve put 12 hits on the board.

Chris Marrero (2-for-5) and Jhonatan Solano (3-for-4) were the heart of the Harrisburg offense, each homering while combining for five of the seven Senator hits and four of the five runs driven in. Micahel Burgess contributed the other RBI and threw out a runner at third, but went an abysmal 0-for-13 with three walks and five strikeouts during the series. Josh Johnson only reached base twice but was the offensive MVP for the Sens in the series, batting .417 with seven walks and four runs scored.

Our final 2010 look at the leaders, trailers, and outliers in the Washington Nationals minor leagues, with a focus on the level where the prospects shone the brightest, not counting some guy who made a tour for service-time reasons (*ahem*).

On Friday, we examined the two players that the Nationals acquired in the Matt Capps trade. Today, we’ll take a quick peek at the two players that came with the trade of Christian Guzman.

RYAN TATUSKO
Tatusko may be the more famous of the two, thanks to his efforts to follow in the footsteps of Dirk Hayhurst in chronicling the minutia of minor-league life in The Backfield Diaries. Tatusko is 25 years old and is listed at 6’5″ and 200 lbs. Kevin Goldstein at Baseball prospectus describes him as a pitcher that works low in the zone with a high 80s-low-90s fastball, and a decent breaking ball, but “doesn’t have the stuff to miss bats.” John Sickels describes him as a Grade-C prospect.

TANNER ROARK
Roark is younger (turns 24 in October) and a little shorter (6’2″) but a little heavier (220 lbs) than Tatusko. Like Tatusko, he’s said to throw strikes consistently with a better fastball but weaker secondary pitches. Sickels also describes him as a Grade-C prospect, and sees both pitchers as “utility pitchers at the major-league level.